What's the Next Step?: My Journey with Cancer as a Caregiver and Then as a Caretaker Hardback - 2011

"Adjusting to a life-threatening illness is akin to finding yourself dropped at the base of Mt. Everest and being told to start climbing. It is a difficult task at best, but a guide can show you the tools and techniques to make the journey much easier. And in so doing you can get some time to enjoy the view, now and then."

In his moving and ultimately life-affirming book, What's the Next Step? My journey with cancer, first as a caregiver and then as a caretaker, Bob Fritz shares his experiences as a "caregiver" for his first wife, who succumbed after battling breast cancer for thirteen years, and then as a "caretaker," a patient himself, fighting brain cancer. But more than a sharing of experiences, Bob, an engineer by training, offers a set of "tools" gleaned from his caregiving and caretaking on how to deal with many of the difficult challenges that a person approaching life's end could encounter. These include "Fencing with the Physician," "A Friend Has Abandoned You in a Time of Need, Now What?" and "Who's in Charge Here?" The workbook format provides ample space for the reader to record his or her own insights and feelings. Many pages are introduced with thought-provoking quotations that encourage the reader to fully explore the topic being discussed.

Without question, you will be inspired by this wonderful book and the thoughtful and perceptive man who wrote it.